


Is there a difference between hope and a minotaur?

by Melilla



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:14:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28754964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melilla/pseuds/Melilla
Summary: Ghostbur is left alone in the arctic while Phil searches for Technoblade's killer, with only his memories to keep him company.
Relationships: Ghostbur & Eret, Ghostbur & Phil, Ghostbur & TommyInnit, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 77





	1. I am called mystic, which means liar

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic so I'm a bit nervous about posting but I hope you enjoy!
> 
> In this story, the execution of Technoblade does not take place in this, so Technoblade is not forced out of retirement and doesn't owe Dream a favor.
> 
> Chapter title taken from the poem Mystic by D. H. Lawrence

Ghostbur was in L’manburg when he got the news that Technoblade was dead. He had been laying out food and making tea for Phil and Techno - technically, he didn’t actually have any tea, so it was just bottles of water, but he was sure no one would be able to tell the difference. To him, most food tasted the same anyway (like cardboard and dust and old newspaper), but he wasn’t sure if that was just a side effect of being a ghost. He didn’t really mind, and he was sure that Phil and Techon wouldn’t either. People didn’t eat food for the taste, they ate it to fill themselves up. They ate it because they were hungry.

When Phil flew in on his trident, rain streaming from his hair and down his face, he was alone and clearly preoccupied. He barely seemed to notice Ghostbur, who was huddled under the overhang of the roof of Ranboo’s house, away from the rain. Instead, he headed straight for his door.

This wasn’t right - Ghostbur was sure that Phil and Techno had agreed to meet with him to talk and eat (a reunion, in a way - Ghostbur hadn’t really talked to either of them in ages). They had seemed reluctant to go to L’manburg, but Techno wouldn’t just ditch Ghostbur without telling him.

Before Phil could enter his house, Ghostbur waved. He met Phil’s eyes, and there was exhaustion in them.

“Where’s Techno?” he asked, coming out from under the roof. Rain fell onto his arms and shoulders, hissing as it sank through his clothing and hit his skin. He ignored the bursts of pain. For a moment, he thought he saw devastation pass over Phil’s face (he couldn’t be sure - he still hadn’t gotten the hang of identifying emotions, and it was hard to see through all the rain.)

“Techno…” Phil paused, face twisting as if he wasn’t sure what to say. “Techno isn’t coming.”

He turned away from Ghostbur and made as if to open the door of his house, but before he could, Ghostbur grabbed his arm. Phil winced, and Ghostbur let go immediately, feeling a wave of guilt (he had been informed by Tubbo that being touched by a ghost was like icy needles plunging through your skin). He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. 

“Sorry,” he said. “But why isn’t Techno coming?”

“Techno’s not. He’s not…” Phil took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. “He’s not alive anymore.”

Ghostbur laughed, then stopped when he noticed Phil’s expression - he wasn’t joking.

“What do you mean?” He said. “I thought Technoblade never dies.”

“Yeah,” Phil said. He seemed miserable, though Ghostbur could hear the seeds of anger sowed just beneath his voice. “Yeah, I thought so too.”

For a moment, Ghostbur stood there, wondering what exactly to say, wondering what he could do to make Phil feel better. He was still struggling to process the information - Techno, one of his closest friends, was dead. He rummaged through his pockets until he found a pouch of blue dye.

“Here, have some blue,” he said, and smiled when Phil took it from him.

“Thanks, Ghostbur,” Phil said tiredly. He opened his door and stepped into his house, leaving it slightly ajar, a silent invitation that Ghostbur was getting better at recognizing. Ghostbur stepped through the doorway and into the warmth, and sat on top of one of the furnaces, watching as Phil gathered materials from the barrels and chests around them, sorting out some items but leaving others. It seemed almost as if he were packing.

“What are you doing?” he asked after a few minutes had passed and he still hadn’t figured out why Phil was doing this.

“Getting ready to leave,” Phil said.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Probably Techno’s old house,” he said. “You could come too, if you wanted.”

Ghostbur paused, unsure whether or not he wanted to. He thought for a moment, watching the smoke drift from the fireplace in the corner of the room, watched the way it wreathed up through the chimney, forming shapes and hoops.

“Ghostbur?” Phil prompted.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. It’ll be like Tommy’s vacation, right? Can I take Friend?”

“Sure mate,” Phil said, seeming distracted. “You can take whatever you need. We have to leave soon, though.”

“Okay,” Ghostbur said. “Well, I’m ready to go.”

“Are you sure there’s not anything you need?” Phil said, glancing at him.

“Well, I have lots of blue, and Friend, so I think I’m good,” he said, smiling. Phil paused for a moment, and then nodded.

“Alright then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Ghostbur followed Phil out of his house, holding a blanket he had stolen above his head to shield himself from the rain, Friend trailing behind him. The nether portal swirled around them, and Ghostbur took one last look at L’manburg before the portal whisked them away.

***

Ghostbur didn’t know that Techno had a path running through the nether that linked his house to L’manburg. He didn’t know that he kept a turtle named Toby in his lake, or that his horse, Carl, wore blue armor that shone nicely in the sunlight.

When they finally got to Techno’s house, after traversing a path through the nether that seemed unnecessarily dangerous, Ghostbur paused in front of the portal for a moment, just looking around. Then, holding the blanket over his head (which was maybe unnecessary, as Phil quickly lifted a wing to shield him once he noticed the snow) to keep the snow off of him, he followed Phil inside.

Inside, lanterns flickered on the walls. It was surprisingly cozy, and a bit crowded - Ghostbur heard the sounds of villagers, a skeleton, a zombie pigman, an enderman, and a single cow. He hadn’t realized that Techno liked animals.

Ghostbur set about exploring it - he found the source of the villager sounds in the basement, and upstairs, an enderman had been imprisoned in a boat. On the very top floor, there was a bell, and a fire flickered in the fireplace.

Ghostbur admired the way the light from the flames played on the bell’s surface, and its clear, hollow peels when it rang. For a while, he just sat there, ringing the bell and trying not to think too hard.

“Ghostbur?” Phil called from downstairs.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to go out a bit, but I’ll be back soon!”

“Okay,” Ghostbur called back.

It didn’t occur to him to ask where Phil was going until after he had left.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Techno’s house. Ghostbur kind of wanted to visit the turtles, but he couldn’t because of the snow, so he was left to sit on the floor (there weren’t any chairs, which was definitely a design flaw) and think. It was strange to him that Techno was gone - here he was, in his old house, surrounded by his pets and his furniture and his chests. It seemed like any minute now, Techno would appear downstairs, shaking snow off of his boots and making a wry comment about the nice weather, or how his potatoes were doing great in this area. 

Technoblade did not appear. Ghostbur tried not to think about how much he wished that he would.

He tried not to think about Techno’s death - it was, after all, indisputably sad, and Ghostbur wasn’t a huge fan of thinking about sad things. 

So, instead of thinking, and risking remembering things, Ghostbur drifted and dozed. The warmth from the fireplace curled itself around his bones and the wooden floors weren’t as hard as they had initially felt.

By the time Phil got back, the stars were out, and Ghostbur was still dozing.

“Ghostbur?” Phil called up the darkened ladder.

Slowly, Ghostbur blinked his way awake, still drowsy. Sleep had sunk its teeth into him and now refused to let go. He stood up, smoothed out his sweater, clambered down the ladder.

“Phil?” he said to the figure outlined in moonlight, standing in the doorway, wings spread out. For a moment, Phil was almost ethereal. Then, he moved, and his wings folded in, and he was stamping his boots off and ruffling the wool on top of Friend’s head.

“Where were you?” Ghostbur asked.

“I was… looking for answers,” Phil said.

“Answers?”

“About Techno’s death,” he said, and then after a pause, he added, “trying to figure out who killed him.”

There was a stiff, forced casualness to his words, a cheerfulness that was Ghostbur could very easily see through.

“How do you know he was killed?” he asked, and Phil let out a sharp, bitter laugh.

“Come on Wil - Ghostbur,” he said (Ghostbur ignored his slip up). “It’s  _ Technoblade _ . You think he just slipped and fell?”

“He could have.”

“I guess so,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem very likely.”

Phil shrugged out of his coat and hung it by the door. Ghostbur watched him, watched the way tension rolled off him in waves, the way it was embedded in his frame. His wing feathers were puffed out, which only happened when it was very cold or he was very agitated. In this scenario, it was probably both.

Phil cleared his throat, and Ghostbur looked up, his train of thought broken.

“How do you feel,” he began hesitantly. “About having a chat with Dream tomorrow?”

***

Ghostbur didn’t like where he was. The blackstone walls and shroomlights and chests that surrounded him tugged at the edges of his consciousness, and a memory danced past, too quick to follow, too out of focus to understand. 

He wished there were windows. He wished he could see the sun, he wished they were in some open field somewhere where the sky was visible and there were trees and grass, but Dream had insisted on meeting them in the vault beneath Technoblade’s old base. Ghostbur wondered if he had done this on purpose, knowing how uncomfortable it would make them. Now, Dream was late, and Phil checked the clock on the wall every couple of minutes.

Ghostbur wandered throughout the room - he didn’t remember much of it. Most of the chests were empty (warning bells went off in his mind: these chests were not meant to be empty, this was a trick, this was wrong), and the armor stands had been stripped except for a pair of iron boots on one.

After fifteen more minutes, Dream arrived. Phil didn’t comment on his lateness, but he stared pointedly at the clock for a moment. Dream didn’t seem to notice Ghostbur’s glare - Ghostbur didn’t trust Dream, and didn’t know why Phil seemed to. The last time Ghostbur had dealt with Dream, Tommy had ended up shot with his discs stolen from him, and his country (not his, not his, not his,  _ Wilbur’s  _ country) had barely escaped with its freedom.

“Hello,” he said, waving cheerfully. Ghostbur didn’t like not being able to see his face below his mask. “Sorry I’m late - I got a bit held up. But, not to fear, I’m here now.”

“Finally,” Ghostbur muttered under his breath. Dream ignored him.

“Anyway,” he said. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

To Phil’s credit, his voice hardly shook at all when he answered, “I wanted to talk about Techno. Specifically, who killed him.”

Ghostbur glanced between the two of them. He was sure that Dream could detect the buried anguish in Phil’s voice, even if he didn’t comment on it. He didn’t like that Phil was going to Dream when he was so vulnerable. He didn’t like that Phil was going to Dream at all.

Dream sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“I see,” he said. “I’m - well, I’m sorry for your loss. Just so you know. Techno was, a um, a friend of mine too. I’d be happy to help you, uh, avenge him.”

Was Dream really stuttering? There was no way this was genuine, but it was hard to tell with the mask obscuring his face. 

“You can’t lie to ghosts,” Ghostbur wanted to say. “The dead know all your tricks.”

He kept his silence. (Who was it that had told him that there was power in silence?)

“So, what exactly did you need my help with?”

“I want your help with catching the culprit,” Phil said, and then he smiled an entirely un-Phil-like smile - all bare bones and razor sharp edges and shadows that gathered along the planes of his face, making him seem almost skull-like in the dim light. It was times like this when Ghostbur remembered (not well) that Phil had  _ earned  _ his title as the Angel of Death. It was times like this when blood seemed to drip from every well-preened feather on his wings. 

“Alright,” Dream said. “I’d be happy to do some poking around for you.”

“And that’s it?” Phil pressed. “I won’t owe you anything, I won’t be indebted to you for life?”

Dream laughed, a cheerful sound that set Ghostbur’s teeth on edge.

“No, nothing like that,” he said. “No strings attached.”

“Alright then, mate,” Phil said.

“Well, if that’s all…”

“That’s all.”

“See you around then,” Dream said, waving before he climbed up the ladder. Ghostbur listened to his footsteps above them until they were gone.

“I don’t think you should trust Dream,” he said.

“I don’t,” Phil said. “Not really. But, sometimes we have to work with people we don’t like. Besides, I don’t think he’d betray me - we have similar goals and all that.”

Ghostbur thought for a moment, about the shadows in Dream’s mask and the way he laughed when he lied.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do.”

Phil just shook his head.

“It’s for Techno,” he said, and his voice cracked. “It’s for Techno.”

Ghostbur opened his mouth and closed it again. He didn’t know what to say to Phil to make him stop crying. He didn’t know what to do to make the sadness go away.

They walked to the ocean in silence, and Phil made Ghostbur sit under his wings so that the sea couldn’t touch him. Ghostbur didn’t know what to say. He didn’t have any blue to give Phil. He didn’t have anything to give Phil.

***

Back at Techno’s house, Ghostbur found a book and a quill and sat down in front of a window and let the sunlight wash over him. Then, he opened the book and began to write.

This was how he kept himself sane. This was how he kept his head inches above the water, how he caught his breath.

He wrote mostly letters, to everyone he could think of - he asked after Tubbo’s bees, and about how the presidency was going, rambled to Fundy about fishing and how proud he was and how grown up everyone was now, and wrote to Niki wondering about her bakery, the flower shop he had heard she’d built, if she’d adopted any more foxes.

He found himself writing the most to Eret. He wondered whether or not this was something to be ashamed of, wondered whether talking to a traitor made him one as well. He knew Wilbur had been a traitor. He didn’t know why.

He asked Eret, among other things, why. He asked Eret whether it was worth it - an ultimately worthless (according to the history books and off hand comments he’d pieced together) crown in exchange for his friends. He asked Eret how he’d redeemed himself. He asked Eret if there was any chance of forgiveness for Wilbur, how he’d achieve that forgiveness as Ghostbur.

When the sun began to rise, he ripped the pages from the book and tossed them into the fire, watching as the flames consumed them, watching as they drifted into the clear sky as smoke.

One sleepless night, when Ghostbur’s mind was full of memories of Techno - the time they had sat on the beach and sorted the pebbles buried into the sand for hours as they talked, the pride in Techno’s voice as he boasted about the potato war (more so, even, than when he talked about his countless victories in tournaments or games), all the millions of times they had stayed awake for far too long talking on their communicators, their conversations straying into the absurd more and more as the night wore on, Phil wheezing in the background - Ghostbur decided he’d write a letter to Technoblade.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t, or maybe he just didn’t want to. Regardless, the result was the same.

His hands shook, and the pages crumpled, and the words smeared, and the ink he’d been using toppled and spilled across the papers and his sweater. He felt like Icarus then - forever striving towards an impossible goal and only succeeding in burning up in the process. He remembered Technoblade telling him the story of Icarus, eyes staring out into the distance, his hand gestures animated as he talked.

He didn’t write to Techno again. 

When he couldn’t think of who to write to, or his hands were cramped and covered in ink stains, he spent time with Techno’s turtles (it turned out that Toby seemed to enjoy being petted.) Sometimes, he would sit, leaned against one of Techno’s furnaces, and talk to Edward, making sure to avoid eye contact. 

He didn’t talk about much - just about the weather, and the animals scattered around Techno’s house. He asked why Techno kept a solitary cow named Bob. It was easier this way, when he didn’t have to worry about a response or carrying an actual conversation. It was easier this way, when nothing Edward could do would trigger a memory or stir up some seemingly dead grudge that, for reasons Ghostbur couldn’t explain, still smoldered.

That was another thing Ghostbur had learned about Wilbur - he held grudges. He could barely think about Eret without thinking traitor, without remembering the story he had read in the histories, without a bitter taste that welled up in his mouth. 

He didn’t even remember what Eret had done to him. Why was he so angry about the things that these people had supposedly done to Wilbur, especially when he didn’t even remember what had been done? Especially when Wilbur had been such a bad person?

No, it was better to avoid topics like that, better to sit in the honey rays of the morning sun and talk about things that didn’t matter. 


	2. Do you ever think of me and my two hands and wonder why they never soothed your fevers?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghostbur talks to Eret about Wilbur and wonders who he really is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify even more about what is and isn't canon: Neither Tommy's exile or Technoblade's execution happens. L'manburg and Dream are on much better terms/have a tentative alliance instead of being enemies, like they are in canon.
> 
> Chapter title taken from Never Love an Anchor, by the Crane Wives

Ghostbur often missed L’manburg. He wasn’t sure if he missed the new L’manburg, which Phil had told him not to visit too often, or Wilbur’s L’manburg, which had died long ago. Tubbo still thought it hadn’t died, and Ghostbur thought that they could probably fix things if they tried.

The thought of them fixing things made a bitter taste well up in Ghostbur’s mouth for no reason at all. That was probably a symptom of having been Wilbur. It was good that they were fixing things, and Ghostbur knew that.

It annoyed him that he couldn’t let go of the pointless bitterness Wilbur had felt when he was alive. It bothered him that Phil seemed almost happy whenever he snapped at things that would have annoyed Wilbur, that he felt the ghosts of anger and reacted to it without thinking.

He visited L’manburg despite Phil’s worry (about what exactly? Was Phil staying away from it out of loyalty to Techno, or something else? Did Phil blame L’manburg for Techno’s death?) 

He walked the new streets, the sun passing through his semi-transparent body. He had taken Friend with him, who he thought needed to get out more - it wasn’t healthy to sit around all day inside, and he had tried telling Friend that, but they hadn’t listened.

He noticed the Drug Van, and decided to visit that later. Right now, he just wanted to talk to someone. 

He found Tubbo putting up festival posters (he knew that there had been a festival before, but he remembered none of it). 

“What are you doing?” he asked, materializing more fully behind Tubbo.

“Whoa!” Tubbo yelped, then laughed. “You startled me! I’m, uh, just putting up some posters about the festival we’re having. Celebrating the rebuilding of L’manburg, ya know? It’s exciting!”

“Yeah,” Ghostbur said. He remembered Techno saying something after a festival, something that had struck him for some reason. He couldn’t remember the words. He wanted to talk to Techno. He couldn’t. “Hey, do you know what happened to Techno?” he asked, not sure if he was sleuthing for information or breaking the news to someone.

“No,” Tubbo said. “I mean, a while back Dream was looking for him. I think he wanted Techno for some project? Something about a prison. I told him Tommy might know where Techno was-”

“You talked to Dream?” Ghostbur said, brow furrowing. It seemed that everyone was just going around and trusting Dream, these days. Ghostbur didn’t understand it. “I thought he was our enemy.”

“Well, I mean, if Dream wanted to put Technoblade in prison, I’d say that’s pretty good. I mean, Techno was the one who spawned withers.”  
Ghostbur brushed off the comment about withers - it sounded familiar, but like something he didn’t want to think too hard about.

“I don’t think Dream did end up getting help with his project from Technoblade,” he said.

“Really? Why?”

“Because Techno’s dead,” he said. He didn’t know why, exactly, he was telling Tubbo this, but it felt like he had to. Like Tubbo was owed this knowledge after - after what? It was related to a festival, he knew that much.

“Oh, really?” Tubbo said. “That’s great!”

“It is?”

“Yeah,” Tubbo said, and then went off on some tangent about finally being able to rebuild in peace, and being able to not worry about anarchists, and finally having earned a victory for once.

Ghostbur excused himself and walked away. He didn’t really understand why Tubbo was so against Techno - hadn’t they all been friends, at least at some point? Hadn’t they been fighting for the same thing? He didn’t get it.

Something had changed in L’manburg, and maybe in Tubbo too, something Ghostbur didn’t understand. They were no longer as united as they had used to be - Ghostbur watched the way Tubbo’s shoulders set after Ghostbur walked away. There was a hardness, an anger, in this country and its leader now. There was blood sowed into the soil that they stood on, and Ghostbur didn’t know who had shed it or why, but Tubbo resented it in some way.

Ghostbur liked the new L’manburg - its buildings were nicer than the ones in his old country, for one thing. Ghostbur loved his L’manburg, but he tried not to think about it too much: whenever he did, the only thing he could smell was smoke and sulphur and the wound in his stomach throbbed with phantom pains where Phil had stabbed him.

There were a lot of things that Ghostbur tried not to think about too much.

***

“You feel guilty,” Eret said one afternoon when Ghostbur had worked up the courage to go visit him. His knitting needles clacked against one another as he worked, and Ghostbur found the smooth, flowing stitches mesmerizing, the way the cloth grew and grew. Ghostbur hadn’t known that Eret liked to knit, but there was a lot he didn’t know about a lot of things.

“No, I-” Ghostbur paused. “Yes,” he said. “But not for anything  _ I’ve  _ done. Not for anything I remember doing. That’s what makes it difficult.”

Eret paused for a moment to untangle a snarl that had formed in the yarn.

“How much  _ do  _ you remember?” he asked.

“Not much,” Ghostbur said. “I remember more about when I was younger. I remember L’manburg, but not much of Pogtopia, other than when we first started running. I remember a lot of you, actually, in the early days and then you just kind of fade out. I don’t know. I don’t remember the bad things that happen, but I can feel  _ where  _ they happened. I don’t trust Dream, for no real reason, but I think he ties into something bad, a lot of things bad. I hear the name Schlatt, and I feel angry, but I don’t know who he is.”

“Who do you  _ think  _ Schlatt was?” Eret asked.

“I don’t know,” Ghostbur said. “I don’t know. His name sounds like - I don’t know. His name sounds like blood.”

A part of Ghostbur wondered why he had gone to Eret, a known traitor for advice. Maybe it was because it felt more honest to let yourself be known as a traitor, and Eret had never tried to lie to Ghostbur about who he was.

“Do you think that he deserved to die?” 

“I don’t know,” Ghostbur said. “I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen his grave. There are, well. There’s not a lot there. There are some flowers, some pictures. People don’t seem to miss him much, though. But. Well. I don’t even have a grave.”

He forced himself to laugh, though the edges of it were tinged with bitterness. He knew that Eret heard his unspoken question (what did Wilbur do that was so bad he didn’t deserve a grave?) but he didn’t answer it. That was one of the things he liked about Eret - he wouldn't respond to things unless they were said directly. He wouldn’t respond to hints, only to bluntness, though Eret himself was far from blunt. 

Eret didn’t say anything, just nodded, and normally Ghostbur would have stopped here, stopped while he was still ahead, but there was something about Eret’s inviting silence, and the fact that he was listening, that made him continue.

“I feel like - I feel like I’m just a person with Wilbur’s speech patterns and instincts but I’m  _ not  _ Wilbur. I feel like I don’t know I would be if you took away the rest of the memories - I’m a shell, I’m. Well. I’m a ghost.”

Ghostbur laughed a bit. There was no humor in it.

“Do you… not want to be a ghost?”

Ghostbur paused for a moment, thinking. The clacking of the needles was soothing, a pleasant contrast to the silence Ghostbur had gotten used to.

“No,” he said, after a long minute. “I’m okay with being a ghost.”

Eret nodded and smiled, and Ghostbur watched as he tied off the scarf he was knitting, snipping it from the ball of yarn.

“I think you should have this,” he said, offering it to Ghostbur. Ghostbur took it hesitantly, admiring the deep blue color, the soft texture. 

“Why?” he said.

“It looks like you,” said Eret. Ghostbur took the scarf.

***

Ghostbur came home one afternoon from a day wandering the forests to find Phil gone, the lanterns in Techno’s house blown out, and a note on the table written in a cipher he vaguely remembered teaching Phil.

The note said what Ghostbur had suspected - Phil had gone off to pursue one of his theories, he was close to making a breakthrough, and Ghostbur should sit tight and wait for him to come back. It was also addressed to Wilbur. Ghostbur really wished that people would stop calling him that.

Ghostbur accepted it the way he accepted most things. It was hard for him to get angry at things (maybe because he was a ghost, or maybe because he was Wilbur’s ghost.) 

That night, for the first time, Ghostbur wrote to Phil. 

He asked Phil if the stars felt closer when you had wings. He asked Phil why it seemed like his world had fallen apart when Techno had died. He scribbled out his next question. He didn’t bother writing the question after that. He wanted to shout at Phil (Wilbur had shouted a lot), he wanted to demand answers (Wilbur had demanded a lot of things.)

“Why does Schlatt have a grave but not me?” he wanted to say. “When are you going to bury Techno? Did you react this way when I died (when Wilbur died)? Why was it so easy for me to convince you to kill me?”

He didn’t say that, not out loud, not even to the empty house. He didn’t write that, even though he knew he’d probably burn it anyway. It felt like writing it down would mean he meant it, and he didn’t want to be the type of person who resented those kinds of things.

Instead, he went to L’manburg. He liked the new L’manburg, with its nice new buildings and the familiar Drug Van that he’d apparently destroyed when he’d destroyed everything. He had heard that Tubbo had rebuilt it, and that made sense in a strange sort of way. Of all the original members of L’manburg, Tubbo was the one who clung the most to the past (although maybe it was the other way around, maybe the past had caught in his skin and hair and stuck burrs onto his clothes and refused to let go). Tommy had moved onto fighting for his discs, and Fundy was busy helping rule a country that Ghostbur sometimes regretted not giving him, one that was barely L’manburg anymore.

Sometimes, Ghostbur thought that Tubbo was the only one who saw what L’manburg had been. Sometimes, Ghostbur thought that Tubbo was the only one trying to restore that, even as he passed more, new laws and more of his power was siphoned away from him.

Ghostbur sat today in the Drug Van, Eret’s scarf looped around his neck - it wasn’t cold but he wore it anyway. Friend sat by him, resting their head on his knee. He remembered thinking he was like Icarus, but he didn’t feel like Icarus now.

Maybe he was more like Prometheus - regaining everything he had lost at night only to have it ripped it away from him again when the sun rose. He thought of the ashes of his letters in the fireplace.

He thought of Technoblade. Thinking about ancient heroes always led him back to Technoblade, and he decided that he’d rather not think. 

For a while, he swam in the golden sunlight which spilled across the counters near the windows of the van, and reflected off the empty bottles in the brewing stands. A leaf drifted across the still water in one of the cauldrons.

The van felt almost like a threshold in a way, separate from the passage of time. The chests were empty, but they held memories. Dust lingered on the windowsills. Sometimes, all Ghostbur could see was the sameness of now and then, here and there. 

He twisted a piece of yarn that had come loose from the scarf around one of his translucent fingers and let it go again.

Friend watched him passively, their horizontally slitted pupils narrowed in the bright light. After a couple more minutes, Ghostbur could hardly bear the silence, the stillness, the peace, and so he stood up. Outside, the sky was clear. 

Sometimes, he wished it would rain, so he could feel the fizzling burning against his skin. 

“Come on, Friend,” he said. “We should probably head home now.”

Friend followed him as they always did, and Ghostbur only paused once in front of Phil’s old house before he moved on. He felt especially like a ghost now - haunting the places of the people who had already left, sitting and stewing in memories in old homes and empty, abandoned vans.

Friend let out a mournful baa, and Ghostbur stepped through the nether portal and let Friend herd him back home.

***

Ghostbur sheared Friend the next day. Holding onto the coarse blue wool, he wondered if Eret would mind him coming again. He wondered if Eret would be willing to teach him to knit. 

It was snowing outside again, like it always was when Ghostbur wanted to go somewhere, so he took a blanket off of Techno’s old bed and held it above himself as he left the house. 

Ghostbur thought of Tommy. He wondered if Tommy had settled back into L’manburg and was happy with just himself and Tubbo. He wondered if he’d noticed that Phil and Ghostbur were gone. He wondered if he’d care if he knew that Technoblade was dead.

Then Ghostbur chastised himself - he was one to be angry at someone for running away. He was one to accuse someone of being a traitor.

He got to Eret’s castle quickly, and paused outside. Friend nuzzled his hand and led him over to the entrance. He glanced down at them and wondered how his sheep knew him better than he knew himself.

Eret was relaxing in the courtyard, as was his habit, but he looked up when Ghostbur came in.

“Hey, Ghostbur,” he said, flashing a smile. “That’s some nice wool you have there.”

“Thanks,” Ghostbur said, rubbing Friend’s head. “Uh, I was wondering if you’d maybe teach me how to knit?”

“Sure,” Eret said. “I’d be happy to, but first we’d need to turn it into yarn.”

“Uh, how do we-”

“I still have a spinning wheel kicking around in the castle, I think. Give me a second.”

As Ghostbur stood in the courtyard, waiting for Eret to return, a part of him wondered why Eret was so willing - even eager - to help him. Some remnant of Wilbur whispered not to trust him, but he pushed it aside. He was coming to realize, based off of clues he had dug out of conversations with Eret and others, that it had not been about Dream over L’manburg for Eret - it had been about winning. Ghostbur doubted he could hold that against him, especially given the things that Wilbur had done in the name of coming out on top.

A gentle wind blew in the scent of roses. When Eret came back, he was holding a spinning wheel. He set it down with a thud in front of Ghostbur, and gestured for Ghostbur to give him the wool.

“What you’re going to do,” Eret instructed, “is just use this pedal to spin the wheel, and that’ll turn the wool into string.”

Ghostbur watched as Eret demonstrated, as the wheel started to spin. He sat down in front of the wheel and pushed the pedal.

It was hypnotizing, in a way, to watch the wheel spin and the wool twist and turn into yarn. He liked the color of the yarn - somehow, it looked more blue than the wool itself.

He thought of Wilbur, as he watched the wheel spin. He wondered if Eret had told Wilbur that he liked to knit.

“What are you thinking about?” Eret said.

“Wilbur,” Ghostbur said, without pausing to consider his answer. He wondered why these days, he trusted a traitor more than he trusted the people who were supposed to be his friends.

“What about him?”

“What was he like?” Ghostbur asked. “In comparison to me?”

Eret paused, thinking. The wheel spun round and round, and Ghostbur listened to the soothing, whirring sound it made as he waited for Eret to answer.

“You’re pretty similar,” he finally said. “You have a similar sense of humor, you have the same laugh. Your voices are different, but you say the same things. You care about the same things.”

“What things?”

“L’manburg. Your friends. Techno and Phil and Tommy,” Eret said. “Neither of you trust Dream. Both of you are very worried about doing the right things. Near the end, Wilbur acted like he stopped caring, but he always did. I think… I think he cared about saving L’manburg more than he cared about not being the villain.”

“Saving L’manburg?” Ghostbur echoed. His foot slammed down onto the pedal a bit too hard, and the spinning wheel shook. “He blew it up.”

“At the time, there wasn’t much of a difference,” Eret said. “I think you understand more than you think you do.”

“I don’t,” Ghostbur said. “I don’t. And I’m not like Wilbur.”

“I’m not saying you are,” Eret said. “But I think part of you is. I think you could be.”

Ghostbur didn’t reply, and the wheel spun and spun and spun.

***

By the time Ghostbur got back to Techno’s old house, the sun had begun to set. In his hands, he held the yarn and some knowledge of how to knit. After his conversation with Eret, Ghostbur had wandered L’manburg for a while before going home. He wasn’t sure what to think, and his hands shook slightly even as they clutched his newly spun yarn.

Techno’s house was cold without a fire burning in the fireplace. It was dark without the lanterns lit. Ghostbur sank down onto the icy stone floor, and put his head in his hands. For the first time, his want to remember was greater than his dread of what he’d find.

His thoughts were strings stretching from the backs of his eyes to the edges of his skull, pulled taut, strings looped around the necks of the puppets that were his memories, making them dance in and out of focus.

It turned out that maybe his memories weren’t as deeply buried as he had thought. It turned out that if he pulled one stone loose from the dam, it all came crashing down. He found the nearest string and  _ tugged. _


	3. I want to feel the fire you kept from me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghostbur goes on a trip down memory lane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the kudos and the comments! I mostly don't respond to comments because of anxiety/exhaustion but I read and appreciate them anyway so thank you all :D
> 
> Chapter title taken from The Moon Will Sing by the Crane Wives

Wilbur was nine years old, following his mother to the seashore and letting her teach him how to fish. The rod felt too big in his hands, and he clumsily cast out the line. When he felt a fish bite, he hesitated for a moment before pulling it in.

It was big and slimy and wriggled in his hands. He turned to his mother, an unspoken lament dying on his lips as he saw the pride in her eyes.

“You did it!” she said, sounding happy and proud and everything he had wanted from her. “Later, I can teach you how to clean it.”

He wanted to tell her that he didn’t want to learn. He wanted to tell her that he was happy eating baked potatoes and bread and carrots and berries and all the other things they could grow from the earth instead of kill.

Instead, he forced a smile and nodded. He stayed away from the nets that she tried to get him to throw into the ocean. They tangled around his hands, and he hated the way the fish struggled in them.

He watched the smile on his mother’s face whenever he caught a particularly big fish, though, and he let her teach him how to kill and hunt, if only to try to earn that smile.

***

Wilbur was sixteen, and leaving his world for the first time. All his life, he had been alone with only his family, but for the first time, there were others. The trees were different, the animals were different. When the sun set, even the stars were different.

Surrounded by so many new things, so many differences, Wilbur did the only thing he could think of to do, which was to explore.

He went through countless worlds, sometimes alone, sometimes travelling with others. He never stuck with his companions though - always, inevitably, they decided to settle down, build a house, start a farm. Wilbur didn’t think he’d ever be ready to settle down.

For a while, he just traveled. This was his first taste of freedom, and he quickly grew addicted, though he didn’t have much to defend it with. He had a sword he didn’t really know how to use (he could swing it and stab with it and not much else), an axe, a pickaxe, and a shield. He had no armor. Three times, the people he had travelled with had offered him armor, and he had refused.

He didn’t like armor. He didn’t like the feel of metal against his skin. It reminded him too much of the nets he had seen his mother use so many times.

***

He was nineteen and back at home. It had been three years since he had been here, in this world. The constellations were still familiar, though, and the tall birch trees that formed a grove near his house created an aching in his gut that was almost like nostalgia but not quite.

Through the trees, he could see the lights of his house, the silhouettes of his parents behind the windows. If he stood on his toes on the hill that rose above the trees, he could see the beach, and the waves crashing against it and lapping at the docks.

He wondered if he should go to the house and knock on the door and tell his parents that he was back, that he missed them. He did not.

Instead, he walked down to the beach and onto the dock and kicked his shoes off and let his feet dangle in the freezing water. 

He wondered if he should cut the nets and break the fishing rods that leaned against each other and leave without saying anything.

He did not.

He knew, somewhere, that he was on the edge of a threshold, in the doorway between two worlds. He knew that whatever he chose now would matter - not because of the effect it would have, but because it was a choice, and he had always had a hard time making choices.

The moon hung low and heavy in the sky, and everything felt like a dream.

He saw his father’s shadow before he heard his footsteps. He looked up, his heart beating unsteadily and his stomach sinking. He wasn’t sure if he was glad that his father had come.

“Wilbur,” his dad greeted him.

“Dad.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Can’t a person come back to their childhood home without an ulterior motive these days?”

“Your  _ childhood _ home?”

Wilbur didn’t respond. 

“Dad,” he finally said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, let’s look at what you’ve done so far,” his father said. His dad had always been like that - taking things slowly, looking at things logically. Sometimes, Wilbur hated him for it. 

“I’ve… I haven’t done much. I’ve wandered a whole bunch. I’ve seen a lot of things-”

“What things?”

“Death. Blood. Wars - lots of wars. People have tried to enlist me, and I’ve fought in a couple for a little bit. Never too long - not much actual fighting. I didn’t even know what I was fighting for, most of the time. I never know what I want to fight for.”

“You can fight for whatever you want,” his dad said. “Just don’t fight for too much. Pick your battles.”

Wilbur stayed silent.

“If you want,” his dad said. “You could stay here for a bit.”

A sharp intake of breath. 

“No.” Wilbur said. “No, I don’t think that would be best.”

His dad nodded sadly.

“Please don’t tell Mom that I was here,” Wilbur said. The moonlight broke over the water, and Wilbur watched the way the waves shone with it. “Bye, Dad.”

***

After that, Wilbur wandered. He didn’t go home again. Home, in his mind, had become a prison. A cage. He thought of the fences that surrounded his house, lined with torches, and then of open fields and skies and monsters that spawned at night. Freedom had become a familiar drug that sometimes he thought he’d die to defend. 

The worlds blurred in his memory - he thought he’d never grow tired of the feeling of drifting, weightless, in the void, before he was planted on the ground in a new place, untouched by other explorers. The in-between moments were really what kept him going. 

In the void, in those moments when he wasn’t quite in this world but hadn’t yet touched the next, he could see all of the stars.

He loved the places themselves, of course, and the people. He learned new languages, about how the different soils in each different place interacted with the crops, about new metals and stones and how different people made their weapons and tools differently. He was partial to his bows. He liked the way the string felt in his hands as he pulled it taut, liked the release, liked watching his arrows meet their targets.

Swords felt heavy and awkward in his hands, and he doubted he’d ever get the hang of them. Axes felt barbaric - he didn’t like to hack and chop and swing. He liked to aim.

People sometimes tried to attack him (without armor, with only a bow and a sword that never felt balanced no matter how he held it, he was an easy target) and he fought them off. He witnessed other people being attacked, and he remembered his dad’s words: “Pick your battles.” He didn’t help them. He felt guilty, but at least he was alive.

At one point, he stopped in a small, uncrowded world. He lived in a small hut by a river and grew wheat and carrots and beets and wondered what it would be like to live here forever, to settle down.

Eventually, he grew tired and bored and fed up of seeing the same sunrise in the morning every day and the same trees when he went on walks around the world, so he moved on. He couldn’t imagine living in the same world for years, even decades. He didn’t understand why he’d waited so long to leave his own home.

Of course, it was around this time that he met Phil, who had apparently been living in his own world for years.

Wilbur spoke to him on his communicator sometimes - Phil was funny and mild and patient and nice to talk to. Wilbur wondered how he could stand living in the same place for so long. It wasn’t as if Phil didn’t like to travel, either - he just wasn’t filled with wanderlust like Wilbur was. He was just… steady. He reminded Wilbur of a rock in the ocean - a bit worn, perhaps, but strong and stubborn and experienced.

Wilbur dropped into his world and saw the things that Phil had made and the farms he had built and everything he created and didn’t understand why, or how, he had decided to dig his feet into the ground of this world and decide that  _ here  _ was where he would stay.

Phil offered to let Wilbur live in his world, in his house. Wilbur knew that Phil knew that he couldn’t possibly accept, but he still felt guilty at Phil’s slightly crestfallen expression as he refused.

He travelled further. He still talked to Phil, of course, but most of the time, he focused on seeing and observing and finding. Phil lived to make and build and mold - Wilbur lived to see the works of people like Phil.

He was okay with that, if not a bit disappointed. 

He avoided people - he didn’t need more fights, or to get dragged into the middle of them. His father had told him to pick his battles, and he wasn’t ready to commit to anything yet. 

He went on.

***

He found Hypixel later - he had heard of it before but had been hesitant to go there. He liked to stick to the fringes of society, not far enough that it was dangerous to travel alone, but not close enough to encounter a lot of people.

After a while, though, he had heard it mentioned enough times in passing that his curiosity got the better of him. Standing in the lobby, surrounded by people who winked in and out as he looked around (apparently there was a teleportation system  _ within  _ the world as well), Wilbur couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. 

As he looked around, his attention snagged on a kid who had just exited a game, holding a bag of coins. They were promptly approached by a group of five, much bigger people. Wilbur couldn’t make out the words they were saying, but he got the gist.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen people fight and get stolen from or mugged before, but come on. This was a  _ kid. _ His father had told him to pick his battles - that didn’t mean avoid getting in all battles for fear of choosing. His father had told him not to fight for too many things - fine. This was the thing he’d fight for.

He regretted that less than thirty seconds later, when he was facing five men twice as big as him as he shielded a tiny, shaking kid behind him. This was it. This was how he was going to die - he had a couple times, and didn’t mind the pain of dying and respawning that much, but this was different. Not only was he going to be destroyed by five people, there would be a crowd.

He gritted his teeth and curled his hands into fists - he didn’t even have a weapon.

It turned out he didn’t have a chance to defend himself, because another man stepped in front of both of them. From what Wilbur could see of the man’s face before his back was turned to him, he wasn't much older than Wilbur was, and yet there was something in the way that he carried himself that made Wilbur wary.

It seemed that his very presence was enough to terrify the other men, and, when Wilbur chanced a look behind himself, the kid was staring slack-jawed at their apparent savior.

“Guys, come on,” the man said, “is this really the fight you really want to be having?”

“You don’t even have a sword,” one of the braver men managed. “You can’t take all five of us.”

“Wanna test that out?” He paused for what could only be dramatic effect - he seemed to be having fun. “Does it look like I  _ need  _ a sword?”

The man had no right being so confident - three versus five wasn’t exactly good odds in the first place, especially not if out of the three, no one had a weapon, one of them was a kid who was currently shaking like a leaf, and the other was Wilbur, who had barely gotten into a real fight and would prefer to keep it that way if he had a choice. Even though the man didn’t  _ look  _ like any fighter Wilbur had seen - he had long, pink hair and a bright red cape and no visible armor - Wilbur couldn’t help but feel unsettled by him.

The other men stood their ground for a bit longer before turning and slinking away with muttered insults. 

“Who-” Wilbur started to say, turning the man.

“What were you doing, getting into that fight with no armor?” He didn’t sounded stern, as his mother would have, just amused and a bit incredulous that someone could do something that stupid.

“You don’t have any armor either,” Wilbur said defensively.

“I have this,” the man said, gesturing at his cape. When Wilbur looked closer he could see runes stitched into the lining. “And besides,” he added, a smile clear in his voice. “Even if I didn’t, do you think that I need it?”

He didn’t wait for Wilbur’s response - instead, he turned and walked away. Even though he was much taller than nearly everyone else in the lobby, he blended in easily, and Wilbur found that he had lost him quickly. He turned to the kid.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Who was that?” they echoed. “That was - that was Technoblade. Oh my gosh. That was  _ Technoblade. _ I just spoke to the Blade.”

They looked about ready to faint, and Wilbur still didn’t know what was going on. He resolved to find out more about this “Blade.”

***

Wilbur had finally carved out his own place - he had made a world, opened it to visitors. He was mildly surprised when Technoblade showed up, and even more surprised when it turned out that Techno was smart, and funny, and knew Phil. He  _ shouldn’t  _ have been surprised when Techno worked with Phil and took over his world by Day 8, but Phil was good at hiding his chaotic side, and he didn’t know Technoblade well enough to anticipate it.

He dealt with the problem, but others kept popping up, and everyone kept fighting over petty things like land and power (he should have expected this). After a while, he shut down the world and moved on. He was used to moving on, but this time, it hurt more - he had tried to settle down, build up his own place, and it had been ruined.

He kept talking to Techno - he was more interesting than Wilbur would have expected. Apparently, he was also obsessed with farming potatoes (at least, for a while), and was leaning towards anarchy. Wilbur had no idea how potatoes and anarchy were related, but apparently, in Techno’s mind, they were linked.

He found a different world owned by a person named Dream, and for a second time, he considered settling down. There were still squabbles here, of course, and some of them were still over power, but there were also discs, and pets, and Tommy, who he had encountered in his old world. Wilbur mostly watched from the sidelines - he wasn’t super interested in the wars that Tommy couldn’t stop dragging himself into. 

Wilbur just wanted to brew some drugs in peace, but for some reason that was a problem, and soon he was building walls around a place that had been renamed L’manburg and fighting a war for his freedom (this was a battle he didn’t regret choosing). 

They lost, and then they won. Tommy died for them, and gave up his discs (Wilbur never would have expected this kind of selflessness from him.) 

There was peace for a while, and then there wasn’t. Schlatt took over their government because of Wilbur’s arrogance (why had he let Schlatt and Quackity form a coalition, and how had they  _ won?) _

There was war again. Technoblade came to help, trying to spread anarchy. Phil didn’t, but Wilbur didn’t expect him to. Still, he almost wished he had.

Wilbur was spiralling. He knew it, and he knew that Tommy knew it. He hid it from everyone else - he had always been a good liar. He saw Techno’s concern and ignored it (he missed talking to Techno face to face, but now both of them wore masks). It was easy, too easy, to manipulate everyone. He tried not to compare himself to Schlatt too much - he had a  _ reason  _ for what he was doing. Schlatt just wanted power.

He didn’t like it, but he had to. L’manburg was  _ his  _ \- he had made it, he had fought for it, he had loved it. He had lost it.

Eventually, he realized that to him, it didn’t matter if they got it back, or if it was everything he remembered it as. The walls would always be tainted with Fundy’s pickaxe, and the podium would always be stained with Tubbo’s death. It didn’t matter if they fixed everything - Wilbur would always have to live with the knowledge that he had lost.

He didn’t think he could bear that, so L’manburg had to go, and Wilbur had to go with it. He had always loved the void anyway. Maybe when he was dead, he could touch the stars instead of just watching them.

He blew up L’manburg, and he was surprised when Technoblade helped him by summoning withers, though it seemed like Techno had his own reasons for doing that. He convinced Phil to kill him, and he was relieved. If anyone had to kill him, Phil was the best person to do the job. He wondered if he’d be missed.

The void swallowed him as it always did when he died, but instead of letting him go as it usually did, it chewed him up and let him float, bleeding, just out of reach of the stars. For a while, all he could feel was pain. In the strange, backwards light, his blood looked blue.


	4. It's a long road walking into the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur goes on a trip. When do guardian angels get to rest?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter - it was initially going to be a part of the previous one but I thought it would be better on its own.
> 
> Chapter title taken from Steady, steady by the Crane Wives.

Wilbur sat up. Sunlight streamed in Techno’s window. Friend stared at him balefully through slitted pupils, as if they could tell something had changed. He looked around - he wasn’t sure if it had been a night or a year, a week or a month. 

Everything was so different, everything felt so strange. 

He was still overflowing with memories - all the times his parents had scolded him, all the times that he and Techno had argued over stupid things, Phils wings breaking as he shielded Wilbur from the explosion, and this was everything. This was  _ everything. _

Reality slowly sank in again. The sun was hot on his skin, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it. The scarf Eret had given him felt like a noose around his neck. Techno was dead. Techno was  _ dead- _

Except. Except maybe he wasn’t. Wilbur vaguely recalled a prison being built by Dream, a project that Dream wanted help from Techno with. Maybe that was where Techno was - maybe Dream was keeping him there. Wilbur vaguely recalled that most of the information he had gotten had come from Dream, who had never really been a trustworthy source.

Dream was a liar. Wilbur already knew that - why had he trusted Dream in the first place? Why had  _ Phil  _ trusted Dream in the first place? Dream had to have lied to them - Technoblade had to be alive, and that meant Wilbur had to get to the prison.

Wilbur grabbed a blanket to block out the snow and left the house. Friend watched him go.

***

He didn’t know where, exactly, the prison was. For a while, he just wandered - in a way, it reminded him of how he had lived most of his life, except this time, he had a destination. 

He didn’t know why he was so sure that Technoblade was not dead. Maybe a part of him assumed he would feel it, if another person joined him in the void. (How much of him had the void kept, after it had spat him out as a shell of his past self? How much of him had he just taken back?) Maybe he just didn’t want to believe that his friend had died. He tried not to think about the second possibility. He was sure that he had a reason, deep down. He was sure that he wasn’t just lying to himself.

He got to the prison the next day as the sun set. The obsidian walls rose above him as an aching set in behind his bones. He knew, instinctively, that he wouldn’t be able to mine through this, especially considering the materials he had - a pair of boots, and dozens of books and quills. 

He sat down against the walls, feeling the smooth coldness of the obsidian press into his back, and waited for Phil to come.

***

Wilbur waited a long time. He wasn’t sure why he was so certain that Phil would come, but the belief had lodged itself in his bones, and he had faith in Phil.

Ghosts did not need to eat, but Wilbur set up a farm anyway, and grew potatoes because they reminded him of Techno. He ate them and they tasted like sawdust and soil and he didn’t mind. 

He tried his best to remember more about Techno - there were still gaps to be filled, always. Everything he remembered felt flimsy, like soggy paper with holes that only grew and grew. He didn’t trust his mind, or his memory - both felt fragile in different ways. Sometimes he found himself talking to the endermen that appeared near him.

He waited. 

He wrote occasionally, though Wilbur didn’t like to write as much as Ghostbur had. He thought about visiting Eret - even though it had been Ghostbur who had forgiven him, Wilbur couldn’t summon up that same anger he used to feel whenever he heard Eret’s name. Maybe time had healed his wounds. He felt hollowed out sometimes. He felt worn.

He missed Techno, who was just out of reach, hidden behind the walls he was incapable of breaking. He missed Phil, who had dropped off the grid completely. He missed Tommy, though he knew where Tommy was. He thought about visiting Tommy, but didn’t.

Tommy, he knew, blamed Technoblade for L’manburg’s destruction. Wilbur still couldn’t wrap his head around that.

When he walked up and over the hills, he could see the tips of the roofs of L’manburg. Sometimes, he wanted to go back there, to live there, but knew that wasn’t what he really wanted. He never went to visit - instead, he watched the smoke curl up from the chimneys and imagined that Tubbo could be happy as the president.

He wondered if Niki hated him. He hoped she didn’t.

When it rained, he hid under the trees and watched the sky as lightning split it open. He wished he’d taken Friend with him. He wondered how he had grown to care so much for a sheep.

He built a garden one day, when he was tired of only growing what he could eat. He journeyed away from the prison, a bit worried that Phil would arrive when he wasn’t there, but his desire to find sunflowers overrode his anxiety. Maybe his habit of forgetting about important things and getting distracted by flowers was something that he had inherited from Ghostbur, or maybe he’d always had that.

He planted the flowers he found in a circle around a lake he dug, dirt caking under his nails. He found saplings and planted them in a ring just outside of the flowers. He wanted there to be some shade.

He found lilypads, and added them into the lake, careful not to let them splash. Once, he had tripped and his hand had fallen into the water. The skin on his hand had melted and fizzed, but it had healed after a day or so. He was more careful from then on. 

He missed having his communicator. He wanted to talk to Phil, to let him know where he was, to tell him to come to the prison. One cloudy night, lying under a tree in case it rained, he wondered if Phil had died. He wondered if he would be alone.

For a moment, it felt as if his heart was being crushed, and he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t breathe, and-

He remembered Schlatt, remembered how Schlatt had died. He wouldn’t die like Schlatt. 

Once he had calmed down, he wondered why he had been panicking so much - he was a ghost. Ghost didn’t need to breathe. He would have been fine.

Sometimes - more often as time wore on, he went to the prison and pounded on the walls. They showed no sign of breaking. Once, full of pent up anger and frustration, he had slammed his head into the wall in the hopes of breaking it faster. He had woken up, hours later, the sun in his eyes and his head pounding.

He hadn’t tried to break the walls again.

***

The day Phil came, it was raining. Wilbur sat under a tree, twisting a blade of grass around his fingers until it broke.

Phil came in on his trident, a blurry figure through the haze of rain. Wilbur watched as he landed near the prison wall and set something down in the ocean. From so far away, Wilbur couldn’t tell what he was doing.

Wilbur grabbed the blanket and ran over to the ocean shore, holding it over his head.

“Phil!” he called, his words getting caught by the wind before they were fully formed. He waved one arm back and forth. “Phil!”

Thunder boomed, and Phil looked up, eyes meeting Wilbur’s. 

“Ghostbur?” he shouted.

“No!” Wilbur said. “It’s me, it’s Wilbur!”

There was a flutter of wings, and Phil was standing next to him, replacing Wilbur’s blanket with an extended wing. The rain pounded on his feathers.

“What are you talking about, mate?” Phil said.

“I have my memories back,” Wilbur said. 

“What do you mean?” Phil said. “Are you… you’re Wil again?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur said. 

“You’re - it’s - I.” Phil paused, took a breath. Wilbur looked at him more closely - he hadn’t realized how delicate Phil had gotten. He reminded Wilbur of a glass set too close to the edge of a table. “It’s good to have you back, mate.”

Wilbur grinned - in spite of the rain, in spite of the prison that loomed above them, in spite of the thought of Technoblade wasting away in it, he was almost dizzy with happiness and excitement. Phil was here. Now everything would be alright.

“Yeah.”

“So what are you doing here, anyway?”

“I think Technoblade is in this prison,” Wilbur said. “I was waiting for you to come here, actually. I made a garden. And a potato farm.”

Phil nodded, seeming a bit distracted - he was staring back at the jail.

“I’m here to break out Techno, too,” he said. “I think they’ve got elder guardians, to make it harder to break in, so I’ve brought some conduits to negate those affects. I’m planning to dig under the watchtower.”

“Okay,” Wilbur said. “Is there - could I somehow help?”

“You’re still a ghost, right?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur said glumly.

“I could maybe get in, and then break a hole in the wall for you to come in as well, and then we could get Techno out. It would give me more time for some of the other things I have planned, too.”

“Okay,” Wilbur said. He didn’t ask what Phil had planned. His friend was inches away from shattering, and whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. It didn’t matter. They were here to save Technoblade. It was all going to be okay.

He wasn’t sure what else to say - he wasn’t sure how to capture the excitement and hope that had taken ahold of him. They were about to break their friend out. He was about to see Technoblade again.

***

The plan worked perfectly. After Phil had spent so long preparing, Wilbur would have been surprised if it didn’t. The redstone that Sam had set up was no match for the explosives Phil had brought with them. 

“Find Technoblade,” Phil instructed. “He should be in a cell somewhere, but I don’t know exactly where.”

The prison was dark and winding and Wilbur’s footsteps echoed. From behind him, Wilbur could hear the sounds of withers being summoned. He turned a corner and found himself in the same place he had started. The shroomlights on the walls flickered and glowed. 

The passageways were long and dark and went on forever. Wilbur didn’t know which direction he had come from, or where to go. He was in a maze, a labyrinth, and he was hopelessly lost. He sighed, leaning against a wall and closing his eyes.

He was reminded of the story of the minotaur, of Theseus entering the maze to kill a helpless creature who had never seen light before. If Dream was Minos and Techno was the minotaur trapped within the labyrinth, who was Wilbur?

He shook his head, ignoring the thought. He was supposed to be finding Techno, not thinking about long dead stories, but there was nowhere to go - how was we supposed to get to Technoblade in here?

Something in the wall gave, and there was a click as redstone mechanisms sprang into motion. Wilbur opened his eyes and looked around, wary. He had thought that Phil had disabled all of the redstone, but apparently, some of it still worked.

A door across from Wilbur opened. Cautiously, Wilbur stepped through it, looking out for any traps. The door closed behind Wilbur, and he looked around the darkness. Torches flickered in the corners of the room. Across from him, he could see bars.

Excitement made Wilbur’s heart beat faster, and worry tempered it - the person sprawled across the floor of the cell was clearly not doing well. Their eyes were closed, and their hair, matted and caked with dust, covered part of their face.

“Techno?” Wilbur said.

Techno’s eyes opened, and he forced himself to sit up. He opened his mouth before dissolving into coughing.

“Wil?” He managed, before breaking out coughing again. Wilbur wished he had water, or a potion, or anything to give him.

“Phil!” he shouted. “I found him!”

“Phil?” Techno murmured. He seemed delirious - he blinked a few times, squinting up at Wilbur. “What are you guys-?”

He was coughing again.

“It’s going to be okay,” Wilbur said. “We’re getting you out.”

“Wilbur?” He heard Phil shout from somewhere in the passageway. The sound of footsteps echoed past him. “Where are you?”

“Behind the wall,” he shouted back.

Stone broke behind him, and then Phil was there, staring about the room he had just entered.

“Techno?” Phil said.

Techno glanced up at Phil’s figure, at his wings.

“Phil?” he said again, his voice hoarse and rough. For a moment, they were frozen there, staring at each other. Then Technoblade toppled over in his cell.

“Techno!”

Phil broke the cell open quickly, gathering Techno in his arms. Wilbur watched as he stood up, holding Techno easily. Behind them, the sounds of withers grew closer, and Phil smiled grimly. Wilbur heard something that sounded like a beacon shattering.

“I’m going to fly Techno out,” he said. “Can you get home from here?”

Wilbur nodded, and Phil smiled again, fiercely. 

The withers had already destroyed most of the maze, and it was easier to pick through it when he could see the sky. Phil flew above him, Techno limply hanging in his arms. 

Outside, his garden had been destroyed by some of the withers. He didn’t care. He listened to the thunder roar and the wind howl. Techno was free - Techno was  _ alive. _

He stayed outside the prison for a bit longer, watching as it was torn apart, before he set off towards the arctic. They had won. Though he still didn’t understand much about anything (why had Techno been in prison in the first place, anyway?), he knew one thing: Dream would pay for this.

***

In the warmth of the cabin, Wilbur found Phil crying over Technoblade’s body. 

“Phil?” he said, rushing forward. Phil looked up with swollen eyes and a broken, furious expression.

“The withers broke the beacon,” he explained, voice shaking. “It must have been the only thing keeping him alive. Once it was destroyed-”

Phil’s voice broke, and Wilbur felt shards of ice enter his heart.

“I’m going to  _ kill Dream _ ,” Phil said. Wilbur clenched his hands into fists and felt his nails pierce his palms. He nodded as he felt himself go numb. 

They had saved Technoblade. They had gotten him out of the prison. They had  _ saved  _ him. They had won. 

How had everything gone so wrong?

***

Did the difference between hope and a minotaur matter? They both died in the end.


End file.
